On several occasions over the course of this series, we’ve looked at “stones” that aren’t really stones at all. Today, we explore the obverse: a gem that doesn’t really look or feel like a stone, but that actually is one nonetheless.
It’s a gift of the earth in terms both tangible and metaphorical: Staurolite.
It really doesn’t feel like an ordinary stone; it’s ever so slightly metallic to the touch, particularly when scratched or tapped with a fingernail, and some of them actually feel a bit artificial, as though they are composite substances synthesized by humans. As it happens, staurolite is indeed a composite, but one that occurs wholly by the hand of Nature herself and the elemental powers at her command.
Staurolite is a metamorphic rock, a substance that forms over time (where “time” is measured on a geologic scale) by way of intense heat and pressure. I’ve written about staurolite in some depth here before, and so rather than paraphrase myself, in some places today I’ll simply quote my own words from a year ago.
Staurolite is, in general terms, classified as a silicate. As I wrote here then:
Most often, the base rock in which staurolites form is aluminum iron silicate, with magnesium often present, as well. Occasionally, lithium and/or zinc may be found. It’s a metamorphic rock, and is often found in other metamorphic host rock, such as schist, a flat-grained rock that tends to occur in a sheet-like pattern called “foliation” (think mica, which occurs naturally here), or gneiss, a formerly sedimentary or igneous rock metamorphosed into a sheet-like structure that appears in the rock as alternating bands. it also often occurs along with almandine garnet, one of several types of garnet we covered last weekend.
Metamorphic rock, of course, is one of the three major forms of rock, and its nature is transformative: Each ultimately began its existence as sedimentary or igneous rock (although metamorphic rock can further “morph” into other forms of metamorphic rock). Subjected by natural forces to extreme heat (ranging from 150 to 200 degrees Celsius) and extreme pressure (at least 1,500 “bars“), the structure of the rock itself is altered, changed into a new form.
In the right geologic and mineralogical environment, with sufficient heat, pressure, and time, one such “new form” is staurolite:
In some cases, the heat and force that come to bear upon a particular section of rock are so concentrated that they produce what are known as penetrative twins: solidified crystalline bars that bisect each other to form the shape of a cross. Sometimes the cross pattern appears embedded wholly in the host rock, giving it a veneer-like look, a bit like the patterning on a sand dollar. Often, the crosses are fully formed, either extruding from the host rock or pushed out of it entirely. These crosses may develop at somewhat oblique angles, but very often, they appear in perfectly perpendicular form, like the one shown above.
Indeed, these powerful elemental forces are so intrinsic, so immanent to what staurolite is that it is actually used by geologists as a benchmark, a measuring device known as an index mineral: The presence of such a mineral is a reliable indicator of the degree to which metamorphosis has occurred in a given deposit of host rock. Its presence can be used to measure the degree of pressure brought to bear on the rock over time, the temperatures to which it was subjected, an even what the host rock’s original nature was like. It’s a characteristic lost in the contemporary symbolism that dominant-culture traditions apply to the stone, but one, that as we’ll see below, fits well within Wings’s own conceptualization and use of it.
The post from I quote here was the one that introduced what was then Wings’s newest work (and one that sold immediately):
It was entitled Forces of Nature, a nod to the elemental spirits that animated it. As I said at the time, of the work taken whole and entire, stone and setting and beads combined:
It’s a powerful piece, one that evokes and invokes powers beyond our abilities, outside our control, but ones that, harnessed with humility and respect, are also gifts of Spirit.
That is, perhaps, one of staurolite’s greatest attractions for an array of traditions, this sense of elemental powers balanced and held. I know it’s part of what makes it popular among various contemporary traditions ultimately rooted in European-American Pagan beliefs. Wings created this one early this year, a special commission for a family member for whom such symbolism was a necessary element:
In this instance, the beads were selected by color (and, secondarily, by material), to create a unified whole that augmented the directional symbolism of the staurolite pendant, a whole that fitted squarely within the spiritual tradition of the woman who now wears it.
And about that name: Thanks to the stone’s shape, people often assume (automatically and perhaps entirely naturally) that the associations are celestial, but they’re actually very different, rooted instead in wood and stone. As I wrote here last year:
The name comes from a Greek word, “stauros.” Despite what you might think, it doesn’t mean “star,” although the stone has distinctive star-like qualities. It means “cross,” and it’s apt. The stones are bits of metamorphic rock that, under intense geological heat and pressure, crystallize into iconic “twinned” forms, often perpendicular to each other, creating the shape of a cross.
The word stake comes from the same ancient Greek root, and the meaning is similar, if with a tendency toward the bloody rather than simply as a wooden tool: Think crucifixion trees, not the wooden stakes of my own culture that were used to anchor hides for use as shelter in tipi form.
However, the cruciform nature of the word took on different connotations as it spread geographically and culturally:
Because of its mysteriously, seemingly magical origins, staurolite has long been held by cultures and traditions the world over to have equally magical properties and healing powers. In some European traditions, they are known as “faerie crosses” (fairy crosses) or “faerie stones” (fairy stones). Patrick County, Virginia, hosts Fairy Stone State Park, named for the staurolites that occur naturally in that area. It’s a planetary phenomenon: Staurolites are found in parts of Europe, including France, Portugal, Switzerland, and Russia; in parts of Australia; in Madagascar; in Brazil; and in the U.S., in Georgia, Maine, New Hampshire, and one other state. That state is New Mexico, and they have been found only in one very limited area: in the greater environs of what were once Taos Pueblo lands, long since appropriated and now renamed the Hondo Canyon area. Here, the natural twinned form shown above occurs regularly, but so does a much rarer form, known in mineralogical terms as a sixling: crystals that occur in a repeated “twinning” pattern around an axis, creating six separate axes or three “twins.”
Of course, some of these associations are equally bloody, directly embodying the violence of colonialism and forced conversion. These are not, of course, the associations the stone holds for us. I wrote about this dichotomy last year, too, a divergence that has special resonance for our cultures today:
Contemporary New Age practices have adopted staurolite symbology from European Pagan traditions, claiming “elemental energies” as properties of the stone. Allegedly, it was also a talisman carried and worn by those participating in the Crusades, as an exemplar of the Cross, with a capital “C,” for which they supposedly fought (and invaded, and colonized, and raped and tortured and slaughtered). Some indigenous peoples no doubt have particular symbolic uses and associations related to the stone, but any such associations are unlikely to be for the consumption of outsiders. Today, many people, Indians included, use them for more prosaic purposes: wearing them in the form of jewelry, simply as beautiful natural adornment; or perhaps carrying one for good luck of a sort, in appreciation of the complex and serendipitous properties and processes necessary to form the stone as if by magic.
It is that last link that informs Wings’s use of them —serendipity and synchronicity, and appreciation of and respect for the power of elemental forces combining over time on an epic (and epochal) scale to create something entirely unique and beautiful.
One of his earlier pieces made with staurolite is featured in the image at the top of this post. It sold a few years ago; the client intended it as a gift for her son-in-law, a young man of indigenous background. It’s shown here from another angle, one that makes the form and facets of the center stone abundantly clear:
The name of the cuff was, aptly enough, Elemental. Wings chose, I believe entirely without conscious intent, traditional patterns in the accompanying stampwork that represented the elements themselves: earth; air; fire; water. Along the center of the band, he stamped Eyes of Spirit in a repeating pattern, bringing together the physical world and the spiritual one together in one beautifully complex piece.
Like the other two pieces shown here today, it represented a melding of worlds by way of Nature’s own forces, all centered around a local, wholly indigenous gift of the earth.
~ Aji
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